September 27, 2011

Something trivial that will always annoy me: When people grab others’ attention with something that’s supposed to display their emotional or intellectual depth, when in reality the statement they make is completely standard to everyone.

Example 1: When someone gets a tattoo that says “Love”.

What is that all about? Are you trying to show how much you like love, or that love is super important to you? Hmm, well that’s strange… you like love? I didn’t know anyone else did. What is this love anyways? Never heard of it. Maybe if I was more deep and thoughtful like you I could attempt to comprehend why this “love” thing is so great. Golly, I hope that someday the rest of us can understand the meaning behind this word just like you do!

The same goes for things like “Music” or “Friendship”.

Like, oh, I see that you enjoy music. You really must show me your catalog of music sometime! I mean, since you’ve got that tattoo you must enjoy YOUR music much more than I enjoy mine, to the point at which you couldn’t help but get a permanent reminder of that fact! Really, I wasn’t aware that anybody else liked music. What an interesting tattoo.

Example 2: When someone posts a status on facebook like this one:

“My Confessions #6: I think that you should only say “I Love You” if you truly mean it.”

That’s inspiring. So you’re saying that you SHOULDN’T lie and tell someone that you love them? You know, I’d never thought about it that way, but you’re right! All my life I’ve been going up to strangers willy nilly and telling them that I love them. On the street? I LOVE YOU! In the bathroom? I LOVE YOU! But now you’ve shown me how wrong I’ve been all these years. Thank you for the wisdom, you stupid fucking girl person. I truly admire your courage; coming out with this confession of yours couldn’t have been easy.

Example 3: Okay so I don’t have a third example in mind, but you get the idea!

I’m not usually one to hate on personal expression, but if you’re visible in the public eye (or on the internet, WHICH IS PUBLIC) and you want to seem intelligent or profound, try to avoid saying things that literally everyone else on Earth isn’t already thinking. Be unique.

December 25, 2010

This Christmas has been extremely rewarding, not just because I got to see my friends and family but also because FUCK YEA, GIFTS!

I’m in such a good mood. Here’s why:

1) Guster’s new album Easy Wonderful! I love Guster; they’re my favorite band and they haven’t put out an album in four years so I was anticipating this for a long time. I’m listening to it right now and it’s making me so happy. Well worth the wait.

2) LOST Seasons 1 & 2! I started watching Lost with my friends at the start of the sixth season and fell in love with it. It instantly became my favorite TV show and I’ve always wanted to go back and watch Seasons 1-5. Now it begins… lucky I’ve got another three weeks of vacation to kill.

3) Inception DVD! Chris Nolan is my favorite director, and always was even before he made The Dark Knight. Inception was an incredible experience for me not only because of how amazingly stylish the movie was, but because of how many jokes came of it afterwards (BWAAAA to name one). I’m glad to have added this epic fragment of my future Nolan collection to the pile.

4) Avatar [DVD]! Even though my mom accidentally bought a Blu-Ray disc and didn’t realize that my Xbox 360 can’t play Blu-Ray movies (DUHHH MOM! CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT OMGGG) I was still happy to get this one. Some might knock Avatar saying it’s just eye candy, but I honestly loved everything about it. It was breathtaking; I remember my jaw dropping at every scene change. And now I have it fo’ eva. Except not in 3D. But that’s fine because my life is in 3D anyways and that shit gets old.

5) The Hangover DVD! One of the best comedies in recent history. Love it. “SHE’S A NICE LADY!”

6) Gift card to Tenchi Sushi! In an odd turn of events, a sushi restaurant opened up in Bellingham next to Walmart which I’ve been dying to try out. My only experience with sushi is from UMass dining, so I’m curious to try the real deal.

November 8, 2010

Like many other people my age, music is very personal to me. I might not read into every lyric, and I may not know the names of each member of every band that I like, but the music is very important to me nonetheless.

My interest is usually in the sound of the music itself and not the lyrics, though I do love to find a song in which I can enjoy both. When I discover a song with great lyrics that matches the sound I’m hooked.

I tend to only listen to music when I’m alone. As much as I love dancing around to Ke$ha or Pitbull or whatever the party tunes of the month are, when it comes to actually decent music I don’t like listening to it with anyone else because of how personal it is for me. Sharing music that I love with someone else feels great, but I’m always reluctant to do so out of fear that they’ll try to judge or analyze me based on what I listen to. I’d rather put a good pair of headphones on and enjoy it myself without worrying about having to play something that everyone likes.

July 10, 2010

“Hey Ham look, I’m Picasso!”…….“I don’t get it.”

I think the idea that a person can be left-brained or right-brained is seriously really cool. It’s interesting that although such variation exists among people, oftentimes those differences can be categorized using only two groups.

The left-brained are strong in mathematics, logical reasoning, and are generally well versed in vocabulary and grammar. These people do well in math, science, and history classes, and tend to choose careers that are rooted in these subjects.

The right brained are strong in linguistics, spatial perception, approximation, and most notably: artistic ability. This usually results in people who don’t succeed outright as often in school. This isn’t because they’re less intelligent, but because most school curriculum is based on left-brain functions such as exact calculation and fact-retrieval. The right brain is more suited for approximation and looking at wholes, instead of parts.

Everyone uses both sides, but one is generally dominant over the other. As a physics major, I find that there isn’t much room for debate on whether I’m left or right-brained. However, I do possess some measure of art within me.

I’m a singer, and I’ve played the saxophone and piano. Granted I’m not the best at any of those, but I take pride in the fact that I’m not tone-deaf like most of my friends. Although keeping time (“1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and…”) is a left-brain function, recognizing pitches and sounds and intonation is a function of the right-brain.

I doodled a lot in middle school, and the results weren’t exactly professional, but a few months ago I attempted it again and I don’t think it came out awful? I found the random drawing yesterday while digging through my room. I think I was going to add more to it, but for some reason I stopped.

Art?

My scanner doesn’t do it justice, it makes the lines less visible and the page darker. Haha nah who am I kidding it sucks.

It’s difficult to describe, but I feel like I took a left brain approach to drawing this. I was creating the lines in parts and sections, never seeing the finished product in my head like most right-brains are said to do. I have no clue what to make of it, but it was cool to realize that I’m capable of visual art, even if it’s this basic.

I think the reason art is so fascinating to me is because it’s so personal and individual, and also because I’ll probably never understand how to do it.

I’ve definitely noticed a trend where the girls I form the closest bonds with tend to be right-brained and the guys I’m close with tend to be left-brained. There are exceptions obviously, but the trend remains. I don’t know what to make of that either; and it’s probably not even significant. But it is kinda cool.

June 1, 2010

Over the past year, the literature-bred residents of Butterfield exposed me to more music than I’d ever experienced in one place. Consequently, I was able to get a better feel for what I like and dislike in music, as well as add to my resume of drunken party song singalongs. My tastes haven’t changed, rather I’m more confident when I say that I like or don’t like something when I hear it. So here we go.

Favorite Band:Guster — This has actually been my favorite band for a few years, but having had time to listen to other artists and now come back to them, I can tell my judgement still holds true. Although I don’t have ALL their music, I do have most of it, and every track has its own beautiful melody, meaningful lyrics, and perfect harmonization by the two lead vocals (my favorite element of music). They have a great sense of humor too, best displayed by when they released an entire album in which they replaced their vocals with cat meows, then released them on Kazaa in an attempt to deter illegal downloading of their real songs.

Favorite Album:Parachutes by Coldplay (Not to be confused with Guster’s album Parachute, singular) — Yea I know, shouldn’t my favorite album be from my favorite band? What are you, some kind of music Nazi? Shut up. Like Guster, I was aware of Coldplay and this album in particular (it was their first one) long before college, but in school I gained a whole new level of appreciation for it. The soft, slow acoustic guitar echoes and reverbs are enough to sooth an angry gorilla. It’s the perfect nighttime driving music. Chris Martin’s equally soothing voice still has the most fire out of all the instruments, though occasionally the bass takes his place and ends up driving the whole song, aided by some light piano. The lyrics are peaceful, with major themes being 1. dreaming for a simpler life, 2. observing natural beauty, 3. optimism despite hardship, and 4. asking forgiveness. Get a good pair of headphones to listen to this album, there are so many little things in the background that could be easily missed, yet add so much to each song.

At one particularly sad moment in my life I decided that instead of staying in my room and moping I would walk around my campus with Parachutes on loop. It was a cloudy overcast day, but as I walked the edges of the university and the hours went by, the sun started to come out and the music seemed to be getting progressively more hopeful. After an hour or two I was cured of my blues, further attaching me to this album. It’s my favey fav.